Bert and Ernie
by iworkwithpens
Summary: What do horribly AutoTuned music, Bert and Ernie, and Will and Mac have in common? Read this story and you will find out...maybe. Because even we, as authors, haven't quite figured it out yet. This is our attempt at explaining the Will/Mac relationship in season two. Co-written with writingalone.
1. Chapter 1

**Authors' Notes: For a man who worships at the altar of musical theater and various classic rock gods, how in the hell did Will McAvoy end up singing **_**Friday, Friday**_**?! This is our attempt to answer that question, and to try to navigate the dicey waters of Will and Mac's season two relationship. They seem to be getting along better, don't you think? Maybe there's a reason why. Thanks to writingalone for gchating another story with me. On with the show…**

"Are you going to try to tell me you're asleep again?" she barked into the phone the moment he answered it.

"Well, if it isn't Mackenzie from Midtown again! To what do I owe the pleasure, Mackenzie from Midtown?" he replied smoothly, though smooth was the last thing he felt at the moment. He was tired and aching and desperate for sleep, but every time he tried he just stared at the ceiling, until he gave up and trudged out to the balcony, listening to music and smoking and wondering if he was ever going to have a decent night's slumber again.

"Stop with the late-night disc jockey crap and tell me why you started quoting statistics at me during every commercial break until I want to tear my hair out and when the hell you started singing teeny bopper one hit wonder songs to pass the time?! Is this some new form of punishment you're trying out on me Billy? Because I've got to tell you, the lyrics to _Friday, Friday_ may be listed under the Geneva Convention's restricted forms of torture" she huffed out.

"Why can't I quote statistics at you and what in the hell is _Friday, Friday_?" he asked, clearly stumped.

"It's the song you were singing along with the other night…you know 'partying, partying, yeah'? How do you, show tune aficionado and guitar playing god, know the lyrics to a song that was, at best, laughable?!" she nearly shrieked.

"First off, thank you for the guitar playing god portion of that comment. And secondly, I thought that song was part of a Jimmy Fallon skit?" he muttered. She could hear the sound of him banging on his computer keyboard in the background and knew he must now be looking up the song. She could tell the moment he found it. He made some sort of a choking sound and began swearing under his breath.

"What was that Billy?" she asked sweetly, knowing just how horrified he must be by the "music" he was hearing.

"I said what the fuck is this shit?! AutoTune is the downfall of modern music! Can anyone actually _sing_ anymore?!" he asked, clearly in shock that he had even allowed these lyrics, if you could call them that, to pass his lips.

"Are you going to be alright?" she asked, joking.

"Hold on just one minute Mac. I have to go wash my brain out with soap…or maybe drown it in alcohol. Quick, get me a joint, some scotch, and Paul McCartney…STAT" he ordered.

"I'd say that's a little dramatic, but I do agree that you have to get that ungodly song out of your head."

"I think there's a jazz club down the street that's open till 2am. With any luck they'll let me in, though the mere fact that I hummed that little tune may get me banned from any serious music establishment for the rest of my life. Do you think someone from Gibson will come and take back my Les Paul Stratocaster? None of that was recorded, right Mac? There's no chance this terrible lapse in my musical judgment will make it to YouTube, is there?" he asked with trepidation.

"It was recorded, but don't worry, I took the master" she assured him.

"Wonderful! You're saying I have to rely on your technological ability to keep it private?!"

"Hey! Keep knocking my abilities and that tape will mysteriously appear on news stations across the country faster than you can say American Taliban buddy!" she warned.

"You are a brilliant executive producer and I don't know how I would survive without you" he said solemnly.

"That's more like it! And I don't know how you would either…Leno" she mocked.

"Ok, that's it! Did you have a request for tonight's broadcast, Mackenzie from Midtown, or did you just call to harass the DJ?" he asked. Just then his iPod shuffled through his playlist and landed on Van Morrison's _Crazy Love_. Could she hear it, he wondered?

"I just called to harass the host…mostly. You weren't really asleep, were you?" she asked quietly.

"When? Just now? No." Come on Mackenzie, hang up the phone before we're sitting here, listening to _our song_, and spilling secrets. Please.

"Stop being a jackass and answer the question" she demanded.

"Yes, I was asleep last night" he lied again and waited to see if she would accept it. Miraculously, she did.

"Are you sorry we did the story?" she blurted out.

"What story?" he asked, clearly confused. Were they still talking about what had transpired in the last couple of days? Because he didn't remember offending anyone recently…except for singing that awful song into Mac's ear.

"The American Taliban story. Are you sorry we did it? Are you sorry that you're getting the backlash and being pulled from the 9/11 broadcast and all the other shit that goes along with what we said?"

He thought for a moment. He _was _still stinging a bit from Charlie taking him off the 9/11 anniversary coverage, and he hated that both he and Mac were taking hits in the press for what they had said, but he wasn't sorry they had said it…not by a long shot.

"I'm not sorry we did the story. It was something people needed to hear. The fact that everybody is so pissed off about it means that it hit home. It needed to be said" he told her.

"But did we have to be the ones to say it?" she mumbled, clearly wondering if all the fall out was going to be worth one moment of clarity in an otherwise addle-minded news cycle.

"No one else has the platform to say what we said. If it came from a politician or the left wing media, it would have been a joke" he told her. "And why are you calling me in the middle of the night to check on my sleeping patterns anyway?" He just didn't feel like arguing about whether they should or shouldn't have done that broadcast anymore. What's done was done.

"Why can't I be concerned with your sleeping patterns?" she asked indignantly.

"You don't find it strange? Do you ask all of your friends if they are sleeping when you call? Isn't the obvious answer 'no' since you have just woken them up by calling?" he wondered.

"I don't have friends Billy, and neither do you. Let's not pretend we talk to anyone else at two in the morning."

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a few moments.

"Mac, why do you still sleep with a nightlight? I thought that pattern would have ended while you were traipsing around the desert."

Shit, how did he do that, she wondered? How did he manage to cut right to the heart of the matter without even realizing he was zeroing in on it?

"You'd be surprised the sources of light you can find in the desert…if you're desperate enough. I volunteered to sleep closest to noisy generators or computers that ran all night long in army barracks. Occasionally, I fell asleep to the sound of your voice. Did you know that NewsNight runs on ACN International at two in the morning?" she asked.

"I did not know that. Did that help you fall asleep or infuriate you Mac?"

"I tried not to listen to what you were actually saying. That tended to piss me off. Were you asleep at the anchor desk for three years Will?! Good Lord! A war was going on around me and you were talking about iPhones?!" she shouted.

"Hey, the iPhone is an amazing invention! There's even an app for tracking…never mind. It wasn't the best time in my life" he said, hoping she accepted that explanation, though he knew she wouldn't.

"There's an app for what, Billy? Tracking your ex-girlfriend across the desert? There's an app for knowing exactly which stories to air to piss her off the most? Because you did an amazing job of that, you know?"

"I'm going to hang up now" he warned, not wanting to tell her that he _did_ actually track her comings and goings with his iPhone while she was away. Google news alerts were amazing things.

"No! Don't hang up! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to start an argument. I didn't mean…" she trailed off.

"What Mac? You didn't mean what?!" he barked.

"I didn't mean…." she searched for an explanation, but settled on the truth. "I can't sleep Will. I didn't mean to piss you off and make you hang up on me, because I can't sleep and the nightlight isn't helping, and old black and white movies aren't helping, and I thought maybe talking to you would."

"Ok, calm down. I'm not hanging up…I was just trying to yank your chain. And I can't sleep either. All the mundane music, joints, and scotch in the world aren't working these days" he chuckled mirthlessly. "You know, you are the only thing that helps me fall asleep too. We must be two really boring people Mac."

"I don't think we're boring. I like to think we soothe each other" she said so quietly he had to strain to hear her.

"I wasn't really in bed the other night" he admitted. "And I'm not there now."

"I knew it!" she shouted, and he pulled the phone away from his ear with a smile.

"How?" he asked.

"I could hear the traffic over the music. There's no way you were anywhere but on your balcony. Is that where you are now Billy?"

"I am."

"Why are you listening to Van Morrison again?"

"Why are you using a nightlight again? If you don't have to answer my question, I don't have to answer yours" he pouted.

"How old are you? Five? That sounded like a toddler's reasoning Will…or maybe the Tea Party's."

"It sounded like sound legal theory to me. It's called discovery, Mac. If you aren't showing me all your exhibits then I'm not showing you mine."

"Fine" she grumbled, slouching down in her bed.

"Fine" he answered back and slouched down in his chair.

"When's the last time you got a good night's sleep" she asked.

"Honestly? When I was in the hospital."

"Well, all the drugs helped I'm sure" she reasoned.

"Or it was because you were there with me, alternately staring at me while I slept, or beating me senseless with periodicals" he said quietly and waited for her response. It wasn't at all what he expected.

"We're like Bert and Ernie" she said seriously.

"We're like orange and yellow secretly gay puppets?" he asked, confused.

"No, you idiot! We're a matched set. We don't do well without each other."

"Or without someone else controlling our every move" he grumbled. "So we _are_ like puppets?!"

"Ok, forget the Sesame Street metaphor. It's clearly not working here. What I'm trying to say is that we need each other Billy. And apparently we can't sleep without each other either. So I don't give a flying fuck if we sleep in Bert and Ernie beds or if we're in fucking bunk beds. I just need a damn good night's sleep, ok?!" she screeched.

"Who the hell even has twin beds anymore? And I sure as hell am too tall for bunk beds."

"Damn it Billy! Stop avoiding me! Stop avoiding our feelings!"

He could tell he was pushing his luck now…she was on the edge.

"I'm not avoiding anything Mac. What do you suggest? We get back together just so we can solve our insomnia problems?"

"You're a genius Will. I'll be right over."

And suddenly he was listening to the dial tone and wondering what the hell he had just gotten himself into.

**To Be Continued…**


	2. Chapter 2

**Authors' Notes: Please remember, this fic takes place after episode 2 x 01, and the whole "Into the Mystic" phone conversation. In our world, Nina Howard exists as nothing more than a peripheral annoyance. And so, in an effort to provide some comic relief and fluff in the face of the whole Will/Nina debacle, and all the fic it has produced (which is lovely and wonderful, but let's face it, we're all a little down) writingalone and I bring you chapter two of Bert and Ernie. If you have enjoyed this fic, please pass along your thanks to writingalone through PM. And now…the finale of Bert and Ernie. **

For a few minutes, all Will could do was stare at the phone in his hand. Was she really coming over at two in the morning? In her pajamas? But once he went down that line of thought, it would inevitably lead to wondering what pajamas she was wearing…and he really didn't need to go _there_ right now.

He stubbed out his cigarette and turned off his iPod, no need for her to walk in to the soundtrack of their life. Jesus, when had he started listening to Van Morrison and James Taylor again? He'd sworn them both off after she left, but he'd missed them nearly as much as he'd missed her, and the last few months his resolve had been crumbling.

He quickly walked over to the television and turned on the news. That was safe, right? Surely no one would begin singing love songs on ACN, even if night had now meandered into the very early morning hours of dayside's domain. But what to do next? Try to casually slouch down on the sofa and appear as if her impromptu middle of the night visit wasn't unnerving him in ways he would never admit? Throw back another scotch and hope he was sound asleep within minutes of her arrival? She'd never buy it. She'd probably poke him in the back until he woke up. That's what she used to do, when she couldn't sleep, but he could. Poke and prod until he finally woke up to keep her company in her insomnia.

Then suddenly, there she was. Standing outside the elevator door and looking as lost and confused as he felt.

"I used the passcode" she said, tilting her head toward the elevator, and he just nodded.

"Ok" he managed to stutter out. Shit! What should they do now?!

"This was easier over the phone, wasn't it?" she asked, wringing her hands together, as she stared at him.

"Hey, I would have been perfectly happy to continue the conversation that way" he reminded her.

"You'd be perfectly happy to never have this conversation at all Will."

"Oh, how you know me."

"Can I at least stop standing in the front hall?" she pleaded, still fixed in position mere inches from the elevator door.

"Please, don't let my extreme discomfort discourage you. Come right in" he replied, sweeping his arm open in a begrudging welcome.

"What happened to your nighttime DJ gig?" she asked, looking over to find the giant wall of television screens tuned in to various news stations. Why had he ditched the music, she wondered? He'd never much enjoyed late night television.

"I thought I'd go back to my day job. My EP tells me I'm a little out of touch with my audience. Thought I'd see how the dayside anchors do it" he said sarcastically, almost laughing as one of the late night/early morning news hosts encouraged them to stay tuned for tips on the latest in manicure trends. Breaking news indeed!

Mac couldn't handle the small talk much longer, so she jumped right in with the first thing that came to mind. "Sloan would be the Count and Jim would be Grover" she told him seriously.

"Excuse me?" he asked, not quite following her train of thought.

"If you and I are Bert and Ernie, then Sloan is the Count, Jim is Grover, and Don is Oscar the Grouch" she said slowly and simply, as if speaking to a child.

"Jesus Christ! Are we really back to Sesame Street?! Tell me you didn't cross Manhattan in the wee hours of the morning to discuss children's programming with me?!" he shouted. "Besides, I thought you were Don Quixote and I was your horse, Mac? Pick a metaphor and stick with it, would you?"

"Were _they_ platonically co-habitating puppets as well? I don't recall that portion of the story in my original French version of the manuscript."

"I'd prefer to think that Don Quixote had a more professional relationship with his horse, or his donkey, or whatever the hell it was that he rode. And maybe you should have watched more Sesame Street as a child Mackenzie. Children who watch educational programming learn to read, on the average, ten months earlier than those who don't. Maybe you would have read Don Quixote in the original _Spanish_!"

They stared each other down for a few minutes. He, leaning against the back of the sofa, and she leaning against the wall. Finally, Mackenzie broke the staring contest.

"You are infuriating, you know that? I come all the way over here, in the middle of the night, because I am getting tired of our late night phone calls and falling asleep to your voice. It's torture Will. To talk to my best friend, and hear in his voice how miserable he is, and there isn't a God-damn thing I can do about it from across town!" she finished by hugging her arms around herself, in a poor imitation of what she wished he would do right about now.

"Can we please just go to sleep Mac? Please?" he begged, because he didn't think he was ready for this discussion. He didn't think he was ready to talk about what these nightly phone calls meant, or why they found it so comforting to listen to each other as they tried to fall asleep, or what in the hell they were going to do about it.

He turned away from her and walked down the hallway toward the bedroom and waited to hear the sound of her feet padding after him. Did he want her to follow? Because that meant she was actually going to be sharing a bed with him. But if she didn't follow, that meant she was stubbornly standing there, in the living room, waiting to continue a conversation he sure as hell did _not_ want to have.

Mackenzie unwound her arms and slowly followed him to his glass bedroom in the sky. It was a place that could leave you feeling utterly exposed. Sure, you were twenty or so stories in the air, but it was nothing but windows. As if mass emails and tabloid stories hadn't been bad enough, she suddenly felt like the world might be watching them climb back into bed together. Where was a set of venetian blinds when you needed them?

She stopped and stood at the edge of the bed, watching as Will slowly climbed under the covers.

"Will, why _do_ we call each other every night?" she asked timidly.

"Because when I call Sloan all she wants to do is talk about my stock portfolio" he quipped.

"Just the thought of calling Sloan is enough to put me to sleep" she snickered. An economics lesson was the _last_ thing she wanted to two in the morning. "Why do you call _me? _And who did you call when I was gone?"

"Charlie" he admitted. "Charlie is who I called when you were away. Why do you think he drinks so much scotch these days? Do you have any idea how many nights that man had to sit up listening to my drunken ramblings on life, love, and the meaning of the universe?!"

Mackenzie ungracefully slumped into the bed, defeated, and with the loud sigh of a teenage girl being forced to do something she found utterly appalling. She tossed and turned and tried to find a comfortable position.

"Scoot over, Will, or I will be laying right on top of you" she grumbled.

Maybe that's what I want, he thought to himself, but he didn't say it. It was getting harder and harder to keep those unbidden thoughts from popping into his mind. Worse yet, it was getting harder to keep from saying them aloud.

"I _am_ over, Mac. Maybe you forgot what it's like to be in bed with a man who's six foot three" he muttered, and damn it, he really wanted to think he wasn't making a Brian Brenner dig. Please, please believe me, Mac. I wasn't trying to hurt you. Not this time.

"It all feels empty when there isn't a six foot three emotionally stunted man next to me" she admitted sadly, and it was pretty clear by the look in her eyes that she was talking about more than just in bed.

"Yeah, well my bed seems pretty huge without you too" he said softly, remembering that the best way for them to fit in bed together used to be for her to lay partially atop him or for him to lay curled up behind her. But still, he turned away from her and curled up on his side. He felt her pained sigh almost more than he heard it.

Mackenzie nearly growled at the literal cold shoulder he was giving her. She frowned at his back as she quickly sat up and grabbed the pillows out from under his head, watching with satisfaction as his blond pate slammed into the mattress. She began piling up pillows in between them.

"What the hell Mac?!" he shouted, rolling over to see what she was doing.

"If you are so damn offended by my presence that you have to hug the edge of the mattress, then I will preserve your honor and create a pillow wall between us" she declared.

"A pillow wall? Seriously? What are we? Third graders at a sleep over?" he shouted, rubbing his eyes against the headache that was forming. Why the hell did everything have to be so fucking hard with her? Even falling asleep was a battle.

"Hey, first you don't want me here, now you don't want me piling up pillows between us! Make up your mind Will. I think this wall is an excellent metaphor for our relationship" she said, looking at her makeshift construction with pride, and settling down on her side of the obstacle.

"Our relationship is like a pile of goose down?" he asked, utterly confused, and staring at the back of her head over the mound of pillows between them.

"Goose down, British rock, purgatory, hell…pick your comparison Will."

"Or Sesame Street. Don't forget Sesame Street Mac. Apparently we are like sexually ambiguous puppets too" he reminded her. As he sat up against the headboard, he could see the tension rolling off her. He forgot how much fun it could be to antagonize her.

"Bert and Ernie are _not_ sexually ambiguous Will! They are _puppets_!" she screamed, pounding her hands on the mattress in frustration and bolting upright in bed.

"Well, the religious right seems to think they're gay. Should we let _them_ determine Bert and Ernie's sexuality?" he teased. God, this was fun! He missed this almost as much as he missed the sex…almost.

"We shouldn't let anyone determine their sexuality. _THEY ARE PUPPETS_! I can't believe we are having this discussion!" she roared. Now she was nearly hyperventilating.

"Who are you to say that puppets have no sexual orientation Mac? Just because they don't exist below the waist…" he started calmly, but she cut him off.

"I know how they feel" Mackenzie sighed despairingly.

He tried to hold it in, really he did, but he couldn't help the laughter that escaped at her comment…which only drew a glare from her.

"A little melodramatic, aren't we Mac?" he asked, trying to compose himself.

"Well Hef, not all of us can lure strangers into bed with promises of marijuana and gunplay" she snapped back.

"Jesus Christ Mac! That was a blind date that Sloan set me up on and it was months ago! And I didn't sleep with her! And why in the hell am I even telling you that?! As if I have something to apologize for?"

He slouched back down in bed and they both lay, staring at the ceiling, but separated by a ridiculous wall of pillows.

"You're right…you don't have anything to apologize for" she admitted. "I should…wait. You really didn't sleep with her?" she asked, stunned.

"No, I didn't sleep with her Mac. Why is that such a shock? I've never been one to waltz people in and out of my bedroom like it was an episode of Dancing with the Stars…despite what the tabloids might want to print lately. And can I ask when the hell gossip rags started caring about what nightly news anchors do in their free time? Don't they have some reality show starlet to follow around?" he asked rhetorically.

"You could try to give them a little less to work with Will. Having a drink thrown in your face every other night just begs for tabloid coverage."

"And you think I set out to get Cosmopolitans tossed at me on a regular basis? Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a cranberry juice stain out of cashmere Mac?!" he grumbled, and she couldn't help but laugh.

"It's not funny" he pouted. "That sweater cost five-hundred dollars!"

"Yes it is." she replied.

"Stop laughing at me" he whined.

"I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing with you" she assured him.

"I'm not laughing Mac." But soon enough he was, because she was nearly rolling around on the bed and cackling with glee, and he'd forgotten how much he loved that about her…about them. One minute they were arguing and the next they were laughing so hard they were crying. He'd missed that.

"I'm glad my dating disasters amuse you."

"They really do" she giggled.

"At least we can still laugh about something Kenz."

"We could always laugh about something Will. That's why we were so good together. That's what I loved about us. That's what I loved about _you_. I had never had so much fun with anyone in my life" she admitted.

For a few moments, the room was deadly quiet, and she had to wonder what she had done wrong. What cliff they were about to fall off? Because lately it seemed there was always some new pitfall waiting for them.

"You _loved_ me?" he whispered, amazed.

"Of course I loved you, you idiot! Why do you think I'm still here now? All these months later?"

"A self-destructive tendency and a secret desire to drive Reese Lansing insane?" he asked rhetorically.

"Driving Reese insane would just be a bonus. I'm here to do a great news broadcast with the man I love. Clear enough for you?" she asked, peering at him across the bed.

And still, he looked at her as if not quite sure of her words. Maybe he had misunderstood. There must be some other explanation.

Mackenzie, on the other hand, was sure her face was horror struck. How in the world did he _not_ know she loved him? She laid her head down on the pillows that separated them and focused on his eyes. She reached up to run her hands through his hair and force him to keep his gaze directed at her.

"Billy, I was in love with you for months, maybe years, before we broke up. Did you not listen to a word I said before I left for Iraq? Did you not read one of my damn emails? Did you not hear me say that sleeping with Brian Brenner was the worst mistake I made in my life, for so many reasons, but chief among them was the fact that it finally made me realize that I was supposed to be with _you_? I can't believe this! You really don't know, do you?"

"You never said it Mac. You never said the words until you were telling me about Brenner. Forgive me for not focusing on the 'love' aspect of that conversation. The 'I cheated on you' portion sort of grabbed my attention first."

But for the first time in months, he knew he wasn't saying the name Brian Brenner in the hopes of hurting her or punishing them. Maybe there was some hope for the two of them yet?

"I am going to move right past that conversation Will, because we both know how well it went the first time around, and you know how sorry I am for that. I'm sorry that it ended with screaming and name-calling and tears and me going off to the Middle East for two years. But the second I had the chance, the second I came back to ACN and you were willing to talk to me again, I told you. I told you that sleeping with him made me realize how much I loved you and how badly I had screwed up. Granted, I also told the world that we broke up because I cheated on you, but I told you that _that_ was the moment I knew I loved you Billy. I know you were listening when I said it that time."

"You told me that you _loved_ me. Not that you _love_ me. I'm a big believer in verb conjugation Mackenzie. There's a reason you used the past tense and not the present" he responded, trying to turn hi s head away from her, but she wouldn't let him.

"Forgive me for using the past participle. I always knew not paying attention to sentence diagramming would come back and bite me in the ass. I _love_ you Will. I _love_ you" she said firmly, looking him right in the eyes.

"It's going to take a lot of 'I love yous' to erase your actions" he admitted, hoping like hell she was understanding what he was saying. He was ready and willing to move forward, he just couldn't guarantee he wasn't going to need a lot of reassurance and careful guidance from her.

"I can't erase my actions, and I'm not going to spend the rest of my life doing penance. But I will tell you, every day until you tell me to shut up, and even after that…I love you. I love you. I don't stay up all hours of the night talking to someone I don't love. I don't spend fifteen hours a day working with you and still waiting on pins and needles for your call because I don't care Billy" she admitted tearfully. "How in the hell did you not know that?!"

"Why the hell do you think I've been pandering to the viewers for years?! I thought the only woman I ever loved, didn't love me back! That tends to send a guy scurrying back to his invisible friends" he confessed.

"No, no. You're not blaming that one on me! You chose to do that Will. And apparently you also chose to be blind to my undying love!" she grunted out. "And while we're arguing about declarations of love and devotion, you weren't exactly screaming it from the rooftops either, you know!"

"I asked you to move in two weeks after we started dating! I was willing to share a bathroom with you and put up with your blanket-hogging ways! If that's not love, I don't know what is?!" he roared back.

"And I wanted to marry my eighth grade boyfriend after our first kiss, but that didn't mean I was in love with him! Will, at that point we were having sex like rabbits. Did it ever occur to you that your grand gesture of asking me to share your apartment seemed more like a desire to bed me on a regular basis rather than a proposal to share our lives?"

He thought about that for a minute. "Apparently, we're both idiots" he muttered. With hindsight being twenty-twenty, he could now look back on their relationship and see so clearly, all the times they fixed an argument with sex, or a trip to some exotic locale. They never really talked much. Sure, they argued. They argued about everything under the sun, and because he had been able to express his opinion with her in a way he hadn't been able to with anyone else, he thought they were communicating. But they never really were…not about anything important anyway.

"Yeah, I guess we were. I guess we _are_ idiots" she agreed, reluctantly.

"Mackenzie, you know what they say about people who build three foot tall pillow walls, right?" he asked. She looked at him inquisitively over said wall.

"What?" she asked, eyebrow raised and mouth quirking into a smile.

"There's always someone with a four foot tall ladder" he replied cheekily, knocking the pillows out from between them and pulling her into his side, spooning up behind her just like he used to.

She wrapped her arms around his and squeezed tightly. "I love you Will. And I don't care if you ever say it back."

"But it's ok if I say it a lot from now on, right?" he whispered into her ear.

"Why don't you just try saying it once, and we'll go from there?"

"I love you, Kenz" he said firmly, and squeezed her close for good measure.

"I love you too, Billy" she replied, snuggling closer. Who knew conversations about bad music, Sesame Street, and midnight phone calls could lead to this? Peace…at last.

"Mac?" he asked quietly.

"What Will?" she whispered patiently.

"Can I have my pillows back now?" he whined, and she tossed one over her head at him for good measure.

"Mac?" he asked again.

"What Will?!"

"If Bert and Ernie have nothing below the waist…" he began, until her shouts silenced him.

"Will! GO TO SLEEP!" she shouted with a giggle.

In the morning they become a flurry of clothes-gathering, and getting out the door, and trying not to be seen entering the office together, and he begins to wonder if the previous night had all been some weird, vivid dream. Until he finds a rubber duckie on his desk, with a note underneath.

_Would I like your shower too?_

He does a double-take, looking down at the note and out into the newsroom, where she quickly smiles and winks, before shuffling off toward her own office.

God, he was really glad Sesame Street hadn't been defunded. Mitt Romney had _no_ idea how important children's educational programming was.

**The End.**


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